It was more a matter of not knowing “what the exact mission was going to be at Randallia,” he said. “The size. The scope. The number of rooms that we would use.”
But there was plenty of concern in the neighborhoods around the one-time flagship of the Parkview Health system — enough concern, Councilman Tom Smith recalled, that a group of citizens and businesses was formed to discuss the hospital’s future with Parkview officials.
That concern was elevated when Parkview Health announced it would build the sprawling Parkview Regional Medical Center at the northern edge of Fort Wayne — a center that opened in March 2012 and absorbed some of the specialty medical services once housed at Parkview Hospital Randallia.
Since then and even before the regional medical center’s opening, Parkview Health worked to redefine Parkview Hospital Randallia’s mission and on July 8 began construction of the most outward sign yet that Randallia isn’t going anywhere: a $3.2-million project that includes a new entrance, park, courtyard and campus signs.
Parkview's commitment to keep Randallia open is almost more important than whatever they end up doing there. I always understood the importance of a nearby hospital intellectually, but I didn't get it on an emotional level until Lutheran left my part of town. Man, what a change in that neighborhood! And I get tremendous comfort from knowing that if a medical emergency happens for me while I'm at work, St. Joe's is right across the street.
"Sprawling" is exactly right to describe the new Parkview complex. And it's so far out there that it takes up half a morning just to get there and back, which I have to do more often than I would like. The patient follows the doctor these days; it's seldom the other way around. Certainly I like the state-of-the-art facilities and the gleaming newness of Parkviw. But it's a little disocncertaining to find that the Entrace 10 or Entrance 11 you have to go to are separate buildings entirely rather than different ways into the same place.
